PORTLAND — They’re anything but beautiful. They don’t have a consistent go-to guy. They haven’t had consistent offense, defense or rebounding yet this season.
They are the Ducks, and they’re 5-0.
Somehow, the Oregon men’s basketball team is off to its second-best start in 23 years, despite its inconsistencies.
The Ducks passed their first real test Saturday night when they beat Massachusetts 91-76 at the Rose Garden in Portland. Now, Oregon’s games against Auburn on Dec. 16 and Louisville on Dec. 30 are the only things keeping the Ducks from an undefeated preseason, barring a major mishap against Illinois-Chicago, Northern Arizona or South Carolina State.
How do they do it?
Oregon followed a familiar pattern Saturday night at the Papé Jam, grinding out a win against a more physical basketball team. The Minutemen sent the Ducks to the free-throw line 46 times in Saturday’s game, and Oregon scored more than a third of its points from the charity stripe. Conversely, the Ducks committed 25 fouls, but Massachusetts converted only 22 free throws.
“That was a physical basketball team,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “They forced us to play physical basketball.”
But UMass was not the first physical, ugly basketball game for Oregon this season. The Ducks committed 23 fouls against Portland last Tuesday night, 27 against Portland State the previous Saturday and 25 in their home opener against Mississippi Valley State.
“It’s not going to look good every night, but as long as we get the ‘W,’ we’re happy,” Ducks forward Freddie Jones said.
That’s exactly what Oregon has done — secured the win. While adjusting to stricter officiating, the Ducks have won with the things they’ve touted since the beginning of the season: A deep bench that will pick up the slack if the stars don’t perform, team chemistry that allows the team to bounce back from adversity, and talented freshmen.
On Saturday, the bench and the chemistry won the game for Oregon.
“It was the effort of everyone on this team — we helped each other out, we were unselfish with the basketball, and we just played our hearts out,” senior forward Bryan Bracey said. “That’s what we have to do every night.”
Bracey had a career-high 24 points against UMass, and Jones added 23 of his own, but the bench came through for 23 key points that sealed the win for the Ducks.
That’s why Kent wasn’t too upset when freshman standout Luke Ridnour put up dismal numbers Saturday night after getting into foul trouble.
“That’s the beauty of our team,” Kent said. “Don’t put too much into ‘that guy played this much the other game, and only played a little bit this game.’ Another guy is going to step up and have his big game.
“Nights when we’re all on the same page, that’s going to be something to see.”
Kent will take a lot of positives from his pre-finals week test against UMass. Anthony Norwood, quietly averaging almost 14 points a game, has stepped comfortably into his starting role. Freshman guard Luke Jackson has been turning in impressive statistics, from points to assists. Bracey, Jones and senior center Julius “Juice” Hickshave combined to take charge of the team.
Kent sees his team learning and growing with each game, taking those small steps toward the big NCAA Tournament prize.
“We still have an enormous amount of growth potential, and that’s very encouraging,” Kent said. “If there’s a negative with this team, it’s just that we need to continue to develop.”
The fans see ugly play and fouls abounding, but Kent sees an infant of a team putting on years with each game.
At least there’s one thing everybody sees: The Ducks are 5-0, and that’s what matters.
Peter Hockaday is a sports reporter for the Emerald. You can reach him at
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